A Star's Sky
by Hailey-Stone
Summary: Some people must go on an epic journey to find their destiny. Other’s become aware of it after they cream their face to the sidewalk. Cassie is one of those people. [Rated for Language and Future Violence]
1. Prologue Welcome to My Screwed Up Life

**Chapter One: Prologue- Welcome to My Screwed Up Life**

So… you decided to read about the Life and Times of Cassiopeia Andromeda Astrum. I hate my name… It's way to long… Plus, having _**two**_ constellations in your name automatically give you the nickname "Star". Not to mention my last name is Latin for "Star". How quaint. Anywho, just to sum up my life before we begin the story, I just turned sixteen, though at the beginning of the story I just turned thirteen, thus making me a seventh grader; I'm currently a Junior in high school; lineage wise, I'm basically a mutt; I live in South Dakota; I own a horse; I'm disabled; and what else… Let me think… Oh yeah, did I mention that I'm a Dragon Rider?

_**That's kind of an important fact, Cassie.**_

_SHUT UP SKY. __NO ONE_asked you.

_**Hn…**_

_-Grumble- _Stupid dragon. I knew he was trouble the moment I found him._ –Grumble-_

_**FLASHBACK**_

_Cassie casually walked/crutched/whatever the heck you want to call it down the sidewalk, whistling like she didn't have a care in the world. Suddenly, one of her braces slid on something, knocking her off balance, and her face tried to become one with the sidewalk._

"_Ow…" She looked behind her and spotted the cause of her extremely scratched face. It was a rock. A weird one at that, but nevertheless a rock. She picked up the stone so she could throw across the street. But when she raised her arm, she found that she couldn't bring herself to throw it away. _

"_Damn rock…" she grumbled as she stuck it into her backpack and headed home._

_**END FLASHBACK**_

So, yeah… It was very painful… And just GUESS what it turned into? I'll give you three guesses, first two don't count. CORRECT! An EXTREMELY obnoxious dragon named Sky'ndar! w00t!

_**You're babbling… You need to stop…**_

You're talking… You need to shut up…

_**-Sigh- Why don't you tell them how you are disabled?**_

I thought I just told you to _shut up_. _-Grumble-_ Fine… Alrighty, so, my left leg is what you would call "crooked". The bones are all twisted and jumbled and weird and the doctors said they couldn't fix my leg because of the way it grew. It isn't exactly the most fun thing in the world to have a leg bent at the wrong angle, I can tell ya'. It basically means running, jumping, playing sports, riding a bike, etc. is out of the question. Thankfully, my parents decided that the best thing for me would be a horse. Yep, a wonderful, gorgeous Arabian mare named Desert Wind. And as an Arabian, she has the classic traits of the breed. This includes, unsurprisingly, the fact that she's a total bitch (pardon my French) to everyone. That is, everyone but me. She likes me. I sneak her lots of treats. Without her, I probably wouldn't have made it through junior high and the first two years of high school (not to mention I couldn't have taken care of Sky without her.). Just because I can't do sports doesn't mean my horse can't. Being able to compete with D.W. was what kept me from going insane from not being able to play sports at school. But enough about me and my pitiful past, it's time to look into the FUTURE! YES!!! Onward ho, me hearties!!

_**Cassie, you're babbling again… Stop…**_

Sky, you're talking again… Shut up…


	2. Rocks, and Dragons, and Exploding Arms!

Welcome back to my screwed up life story! All author's notes shall be done by me, Cassie, The Magnificent, The Amazing, The Undefeatable, The—

_**Extremely Annoying.**_

-Extreme twitching of the eyes and growling commences- Who said you could talk?

_**No one. But I'm a dragon and I can do what I want. So NYAH.**_

-twitch, twitchtwitch-

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The chick that's writing my _wonderful_ biography, Hailey-Stone, does not own any part of the Inheritance Trilogy. That job is occupied by Christopher Paolini. 

Oh, and by the way, this story starts about five months before the book _Eragon _comes out. Mmkay? Mmkay.

* * *

**This Story is Dedicated to the Hamer Family**

**In Loving Memory of:**

**Jarod Edmund Hamer**

**3/6/06-6/26/07**

**Age: 15 months**

* * *

**A Star's Sky: An Eragon Epic**

**Chapter One: Rocks, and Dragons, and Exploding Arms! Oh My!**

_-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow." Cassie continually banged her head on her desk, despite the fact that she looked and sounded like an idiot. Fortunately, however, she was upstairs in her room by herself; her parents wouldn't be home until tomorrow afternoon. The downward movement of the cranium against a hard surface continued.

_-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow." _-Thud-_ "Ow."

'Why is she banging her head on her desk like an idiot?' you might ask. 'Because she hates her life and she thinks banging her head on a desk will fix it,' I might answer. Then you may ask, 'But why does she hate her life?' Then I may answer, 'Because it's all screwed up.' 'But why?' you may continue to ask. 'STOP ASKING SO MANY GAWDAMN QUESTIONS!' I may continue to reply.

Since you can't ask me any more questions without being physically harmed, you may think to yourself, why is her life so bad? And since I have spiffy mind reading powers, I will say, it wasn't her academic life, even though she currently wasn't doing to spiffily. Her family life, it wasn't that either; she and her parents were currently good terms. Now, social life on the other hand… oi… that was _completely _another story. Let's just say that at her school, only the _really_ uncool people did not participate in some sport. Even the bowling team opened up possible passage into popularity. Of course, bowling was out of the question for Cassie and her crooked leg. Thus, she was instantly the butt of many jokes and humiliations, even though she had a valid excuse for not being able to be like the others.

Cassie sighed as she finally decided to stop trying to give herself a concussion. She gazed around her bedroom. Little mementos of her past were organized on shelves all over her room. On the shelf right above her bed, there was an old bird's nest she had found when she was six. Near her closet, every single one of D.W.'s horseshoes were stuffed onto a bookshelf in a very haphazardly way; there were still more in a cardboard box beside the shelf. On a shelf over the desk was Cassie's rock collection. Cassie growled. There was that stupid, evil, good for nothin', sky blue stone. She had a serious grudge against that thing. Seriously, wouldn't you if it was the cause of your face trying to become one with the sidewalk? Thought so.

Cassie continued to glare at the stone while she grabbed one of her arm brace crutches. Using it as a support as she stood up, Cassie reached over her desk and grabbed the source of her distress. Suddenly, right as she seized the sky blue stone, a loud, obnoxious squeak rang through the room. It only slightly surprised Cassie, though. The squeak been occurring every now and then for the past twelve hours or so, but it had never happened when she touched the stone.

Frowning slightly, the girl tapped her knuckle on the surface to hear the familiar hollow thunk it made. That was one of the things about the stone Cassie thought was weird. First off, it was hollow. Second, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't break it open. Cassie hoped that was caused by the hardness of the rock and not because she was weak. Third, the stone looked really weird, and not in the normal stony-weirdness. Besides the fact that it was a light zircon blue, small, white, vein-like things streaked across the surface of it. It was quite thick and large in shape too: a short of oval-ish shape, though not as much as an egg. It was a strange stone. Pretty, but strange nonetheless.

Sighing to herself, Cassie returned the stone to its previous perch on her shelf and, after grabbing her other arm brace, headed out of her room to hunt down some dinner.

* * *

**Later That Night…**

A squeak rang through Cassie's room, startling her awake. It was soon ensued by a loud cracking noise that was followed by a crash as something fell onto the desk. Eyes wide, Cassie groped blindly in the dark for her bedside table and used it as support to stand up. Dragging herself over to her desk, she recognized the sky blue stone sitting in the single patch of moonlight that shone through her window. Cassie smirked nervously to herself.

'_Strange stone that squeaks falls into only patch of moonlight in room. Obviously, judging by my large knowledge from the many fantasy books I have read, this means something dramatic and life-changing is about to occur from said stone in said moonlight. Only question is… what?'_

All of a sudden, the stone began to shake, rocking back and forth. The squeaks began again, growing louder and faster every second. Cassie's eyes widened again in alarm. As the stone's movements began to become more violent, little cracks, as thin as a hair, began to appear on its surface. Larger cracks began to appear as something began pushing from inside the stone. Suddenly, something managed to thrust the tip of its nose out, causing the stone to crack completely open.

'_Not a stone… An egg!'_

Cassie, whose eyes were currently the size of saucers, gasped and took a small step back as the thing emerged from its egg. About the size of a small Yorkie, the thing was the same color as the egg and had a long tail with small, stubby spikes along its spine.

'_Bloody hell.' _The girl gaped in amazement as recognition crossed her face. '_It's a friggin, gawdamn, flippin' _DRAGON_!'_

The thing was currently squeaking indignantly as it tried to lick itself clean of the egg membrane. Staying as still as she could, Cassie continued to examine the dragon. What she could now identify as wings sat on either side of the dragon's body. They were huge, bat-like wings that were larger than their owner. At the base of its neck where the shoulders began there was a large gap in the spikes. Pausing a moment to ponder why, Cassie shrugged her shoulders and continued her observation. Her shrug, however, caught the attention of the baby dragon. Cassie froze as the dragon looked at her with stunningly sharp ice blue eyes and blinked. Three seconds later, it lost interest and began to explore the desk. Cassie smirked.

'_Attention span of a goldfish…'_

Eventually running out of things to inspect on the desk, the dragon spread its wings and glided down gracefully to the floor. Too bad its landing wasn't so graceful. After crash-landing on the floor, it gave another indignant squeak and started to explore the room. Watching the dragon with now curious eyes, Cassie slowly made her way back over to her bed.

'_Obviously, I'm dreaming,'_ she told herself, crawling back under her covers to try to go back to sleep. _'Everyone knows that there aren't any dragons, let alone dragon _eggs _around here.'_ Pulling her comforter over her head, Cassie settled down to go sleep and get the dream over with. That, however, wasn't possible as a certain little dragon gave yet another irritated squeak right in her ear. Cassie groaned as she pushed back her blanket to reveal a very miffed baby dragon. Cassie's lips began to twitch; it almost looked like it was pouting. Slowly, she reached out her hand to touch it. Big mistake. The second her flesh made contact with the dragon's head, it felt as if her arm exploded. Agony rushed through her body she opened her mouth in a silent scream. Not a single part of her body was spared from the horrible pain that made every pore in her body scream. Her head rang with anguish as she felt as if she was being skinned. Then, as quickly as it began, it ended. Cassie gasped for breath as if she had been underwater. _'This is definitely not a dream…'_ Her right arm was completely numb from shock and she couldn't move her fingers at all. Feeling a slight tingly itch on her palm she turned it over to see a smooth, silvery, scar-like, disjointed oval shape spreading all over her palm.

'_Weird…Where did that come from?' _She glanced over at the dragon who was now cocking its head curiously at her with all the innocence it could muster. Snorting in disbelief, Cassie sat back up. The dragon crawled over to her and cuddled into her side. Cassie immediately drew back, but noticing that the pain didn't come back, she tentatively pet it on the head. Out of the blue, she felt something enter her mind, making goose bumps rise on her arms. It was a small prickle that almost felt cool on her brain, kind of like as if she was pouring water on her head. A wave of curiosity emitted from the trickle, then was suddenly replaced by a ravenous hunger as the dragon scratched at her sleeve with a hungry whine. Cassie furrowed her eyebrows; this was a bit too far on the strange side for her taste.

Placing the dragon on her shoulders, she grabbed her arm braces and diligently made her way down the stairs. The dragon stood halfway on her head, looking around curiously as Cassie made her way into the kitchen. After arriving at her destination, Cassie placed it on the kitchen counter so she could perform a scientific analysis of the dragon.

'_Hmmm…Judging by the adorable little white fangs, the sharp, pointy claws, and the fact that it's a __DRAGON__, it is obviously a carnivore. Thus being said, it most likely, heck, OBVIOUSLY is NOT like a duck-billed platypus or an echidna, in other words, dragons are not egg laying mammals, which throws milk out of the equation. Also, because of said carnivorous-ness, it does not eat bugs as a primary source of nourishment. Judging by the build and structure of the dragon's body, it would be reasonable to assume that its species lives in an area with a deciduous/coniferous forest and/or mountains. That would be because of its presumed full size, though the size of an adult dragon is currently unknown, and of the things it would most likely eat. And because they need to fly, they probably need to have large, open spaces, big enough to take off on.'_

Cassie began taking out some things from the refrigerator, still lost in thought.

'_Thus being said, the animals most likely to be preyed on by dragons would be deer, from the forest and plains; rabbits, from the large open spaces; and birds and other such prey-able critters.'_

She moved on to the pantry, taking out a big bag of her father's beef jerky.

'_Unfortunately for previously stated dragon, my family does not eat venison, rabbit, or duck, or any other such animal, so it will have to live with beef, pork, chicken, and turkey for now.'_

The dragon looked on inquisitively while Cassie chopped up said meats into small bits and placed it in a little bowl. After finishing her task, she replaced the dragon on her shoulder and carried the bowl back to her room, with some difficulty, of course, since she could only use one arm brace.

Reaching her bed, Cassie began slowly hand-feeding the dragon while she pondered what to do with it.

'_Mom and Dad will be home tomorrow, so I have less than twenty-four hours to decide. I could probably manage to keep it here for a few days, but since I don't know how fast it will grow, I shouldn't push it off too long. I need it to be light enough to carry in a backpack when I move it.'_

She paused for a minute to rub the dragon on the head. A slight tingle on her right palm reminded her of what had previously occurred. Tossing the dragon another piece of meat, she laid back with a sigh as she stared at the strange mark on her palm.

'_What does it mean? Am I bonded with the dragon now somehow?'_ That seemed pretty likely, based on the fact that she could somehow hear the dragon's thoughts now. _'If we're bonded now, that means I have to take care of it and keep it safe until it's able to do so itself. But that's easier said than done. It's hard to get around with a messed up leg. And if anyone were to find out about it, the government would take it away to experiment on and it would eventually end up in the legendary 'Area 51'. But where can I take it where I can easily get to it and now it won't be seen? There aren't any woods in walking distance from the house…' _Cassie sat with her head in her hands, staring absentmindedly at the dragon as it got tired of waiting for it next piece and went straight for the bowl. The sight brought a small smile to her lips. _'It's just like D.W. She does that if I get too distra—WAIT! That's it! D.W.!' _Cassie leapt at the sudden idea that had come to her.

Reaching over the dragon, which had finished all of the meat and now had a bulging belly, she grabbed the map of the boarding stable where she kept her horse until they finished moving. It was a large facility with tons of land. In fact, it was part of the State Park it resided in, so it had access to a huge forest, perfect for hiding a dragon. And it wasn't even a fifteen minute car ride from her house!

Cassie whooped in triumph, startling the dragon out of its stupor, causing it to squeak crossly at the disturbance. Ignoring it, Cassie began to lay out her plans. She hadn't been to the stable in a while, so when she went tomorrow, it would be the perfect excuse to go on a long trail ride with Desert Wind, thus enabling her to take the dragon to a safe place in the forest. She would make sure she went to go see D.W. everyday so she could check in on the dragon. She would continue doing this for about two months when Cassie and her parents would finally move into their new house. Her parents had decided to move to a house with more land so they could the put the horse in her own barn and Cassie could spend more time with her. The new house also had some woods behind it, so the dragon would have no problem staying there.

Cassie grinned to herself; it was a perfect, foolproof plan. Not even Fate could screw it up. She laid down, tired from all of the thinking she had had to do so late at night. The dragon crawled over and curled up against her chest as she pulled the covers up. Sighing contently, Cassie closed her eyes to prepare for the busy day she would have the next day.

'_Maybe that stone wasn't so bad after all…'_

**END CHAPTER TWO**


End file.
